Autonomous Vehicles

Lord Borwick Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Borwick]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the prospects for developing and manufacturing autonomous vehicles as part of the United Kingdom’s car industry.

[Lord Borwick (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box and look forward to discussing this important topic with him. As a pillar of the insurance industry, he knows about risk, judging risk and pricing risk and about the enormous importance of managing risk, rather than trying to eliminate it. That is one of the many reasons that the insurance industry is so successful and profitable in the UK.

When we debate autonomous vehicles, we should be thinking big, not just about lane sensors or cameras, but about conveys of driverless lorries delivering freight around the country. I believe we must do all we can to ensure that the UK is at the heart of testing new technologies on our roads, so it is good to see that the Government have said that Britain should be at the forefront of this technology. They were absolutely right. Debating this topic now is so important, as the Government are to report by the end of this year on the legislative framework for testing. There will no doubt be lots of pressure on them to implement regulations that exceed current safety standards. I think that would be wrong.

Some good things are already happening in the UK. At the University of Oxford, the RobotCar UK project has developed sensing and control technology to allow a Nissan LEAF electric car to drive autonomously. The technology catapults are doing excellent work, particularly with Loughborough University. Ricardo is working with a mining company with a 200-mile private road.

There were 230 drink-driving deaths in 2012, and 1,200 people were seriously injured. Fifty-four deaths occurred from drug-driving in the same year. They all occurred within the current safety framework. Google’s cars have driven around 700,000 miles, predominantly in the United States. So far, there have been only two reported crashes. Even then, one was when the car was being driven manually by a human, and the other occasion saw Google’s driverless car hit from behind while waiting at a junction. Google estimates that replacing all cars on the roads with driverless ones would eliminate at least 90% of automobile accidents. Every year, 1.24 million people die in road traffic accidents around the world. Assuming Google is right, that could save around 1.1 million lives worldwide. Interestingly, people in emerging markets are more trusting of autonomous vehicles. Perhaps they are more acutely aware of just how many lives could be saved.

If the safety regulations focus on “maximum” safety, the work will simply be done somewhere else. There are a number of other countries wishing to lead the way on this, including the Netherlands, South Korea and Japan. Ford, General Motors, Nissan and Toyota are all also working on this new technology, but are they all doing this work in the UK? We should be doing all we can to make sure that they are. The car manufacturers, because of product liability issues, will be vigilant to ensure that their vehicles are safe. So the trick for civil servants and Parliament is to draft regulations which enable technological innovation, rather than stifle it.

There will also be challenges for insuring autonomous vehicles as they are being tested on UK roads. If you crash, who is liable? You or the manufacturer? The recent horrific crash of the motorcyclist Mr David Holmes was captured on his motorcycle helmet camera. That this tragic accident was recorded means that there is little argument about what happened. Many new cars have cameras all over them, and autonomous vehicles will have even more to ensure that they operate properly. Indeed, they ought to be fitted with a full black box. This would be able to record in exact detail the route taken, the behaviour of the car and other drivers up until the accident, and the aftermath.

Testing autonomous vehicles will also allow us to lead the way in finding solutions to congestion. This is a huge problem in major cities around the world. There is no doubt that driverless cars with the ability to run at fixed speeds and a fixed distance from the car in front will make far more efficient use of our roads. We have the potential to massively increase capacity without a penny of capital investment.

Take the transportation of freight as well as people. Figures show that one-third of transportation costs are labour costs. These could largely be wiped out. At present, lorry drivers are allowed up to 10 hours per day on the road, but allowing more automated vehicles on the road could mean many more road hours for freight delivery trucks. Platoon driving is being practised now in America, with trucks staying 37 feet apart, the front one in charge of speed and direction. This is being practised now by great companies like Paccar. However, does the “driver” of the second or 10th vehicle, just standing by but not actually touching the controls, have to be limited to 10 hours in the same way?

The capital costs of the road system are enormous but, then, cars and lorries only really use the roads between 6 am and 10 pm. They are virtually empty otherwise, which, given the capital costs, makes them wildly inefficient. Transporting freight in autonomous vehicles in the middle of the night would massively boost the efficiency of roads and, indeed, of the vehicles themselves—all for the same capital cost. Another advantage of platooning is that you can reduce fuel consumption by about 15%.

That means if we successfully test autonomous vehicles, we could feasibly reassess expensive projects like HS2. The justification for HS2 had to completely ignore the development of new technologies like autonomous vehicles, because the technology had not been invented yet. Rail freight growth is being used by supporters of the project as a reason to plough ahead with HS2. Here I declare my interest in a potential rail freight terminus in Scotland. However, unlocking masses of capacity on our roads will surely be far more efficient than spending over £40 billion on HS2. We are preparing to spend a great deal of taxpayers’ money on what is fast becoming an outdated technology.

Again, it is perhaps understandable that autonomous vehicles, particularly the huge potential in autonomous trucks and lorries, were not considered in the original business case for HS2, but a KPMG study suggested that self-driving vehicles with the ability to platoon could provide a more flexible and less costly alternative than high-speed trains. This would be particularly true if they were in their own express lanes.

Given the opportunities to massively boost productivity, particularly at little capital cost, autonomous vehicles may be the game-changing technology we have been waiting for. There would be other economic benefits: fuel savings, fewer crashes and parking savings. Instead of driving in and out of work each day, commuters will be able to read reports or answer e-mails while they drive. They could drastically increase their productivity and their earnings. Thinking into the future, cars are parked for 98% of their lives. To exploit that, driverless car owners could put them to better use as taxis or delivery vehicles. It is no longer as fanciful as it sounds.

Autonomous vehicles should also have a profound impact on the lives of those living with disabilities. Imagine how liberating an autonomous vehicle would be to somebody who cannot, at present, have a driving licence. It would open up the world to them and allow them an independence that they may not currently have.

We must make it easy for businesses to invest in new technologies and equipment. That is best done by cutting taxes and removing regulations. We must also encourage real and genuine competition. Only then will the gains from automation benefit consumers. Furthermore, if we do those basics—cut taxes, remove regulations and encourage competition—more jobs will be created. The jobs created in this sector will be highly paid, highly skilled and in keeping with the Government’s own rhetoric about the tech sector. We cannot waste any more time; the UK must become the centre of excellence for autonomous vehicles.